Well, thank you so much for the compliment!...I was "fresh off a run" but had to get him out and about because he HATES not running with me!! (I am proud and so relieved that I'm running again after about a year of a sedentary lifestyle...several surgeries in a short period of time...and packing on the pounds!!...like 40 of them!) So, REALLY...thanks for the compliment!!
I never started a thread about what was going on with Jaxie...I guess because I was scared to death, and doing so would make it more "real"...I talked a bit about it in my "status," and had PM'd a couple of people who I thought might have some ideas about what to do...I just couldn't bring myself to post pictures or start a thread because I just bawled every time I tried, and I was (I have to admit) afraid of hearing something that sounded too scary...(I'm a sensitive thing about my boy, and I wanted to "get a handle on the situation"...or at least have an idea of what I was dealing with...before I shared it.)
What started out a little over 2 months ago as what seemed like terrible allergies turned into a nightmare of just head to toe blisters, rashes, hair loss, and bumps. He wasn't responding to any typical allergy treatment, so he had biopsies done on May 25. They were fairly convinced he had Pemphigus, and I was beside myself. I FINALLY got the results back, and it isn't Pemphigus or an auto-immune disorder. It appears that it did start out as an allergy situation that was worsened by a secondary infection that developed after some of the places were scratched up (kind of open). He just looked awful...
The only "telling" thing on the biopsy results was that he was low on zinc, and they now feel that he has Zinc-responsive Dermatosis (everything I've read about it fits perfectly what we've been dealing with). We are supplementing zinc and will check back in two weeks. In these pics, he doesn't look great, but it is a VAST (understatement) improvement from how he was. He basically had zero hair on his chest (it was a red, angry mess), his face/head was covered in small bumps that would crust up and become flaky/fall away easily...same with the bottoms of his legs. His entire trunk was covered in hard bumps that would later do the same...just crust up and come off if he rubbed them against something, etc.
It was a very scary and heart-breaking ordeal...we aren't totally "in the clear" now, but I am SO incredibly happy with how much he has improved.
